Thrift Store Find! - White 534 Superlock Serger

I had to share this. I finally have a serger!

My sweety and I were running errands and other random stuff. We decided to stop at a couple different thrift stores since we were looking for an old oil lamp.

Well, no luck with the oil lamp so I was just wandering through the shelves when I looked at the end of the aisle and notice what looked like a glowing halo of joy, the thread feeder of a serger. I hurried my pace praying I'd make it before someone else noticed a possible diamond in the rough. Once I reached the end of the aisle I literally went "EEEE!". Seriously, the employee that was cleaning up the aisle next to mine asked if I was okay.

After calming myself down I quickly inspected the serger. It was a White 534 Superlock and found that other than being really dirty it seemed to be in good shape. Then I looked at the price, OMG $30 dollars! WOOO!

I picked up the box and ran over to my sweety to have him look at my find and make sure I wasn't looking at it through rose tinted glasses. I get the feeling I looked like a kid that just found a super cool toy they want their parents to get them. He seemed a little more suspicious of the machine then I did. It really did look like a mess, the little serger seemed to have been in someone's basement or garage for years. It was covered in dirt, the thread that was still on it was tangled up.

My new serger needs a good cleaning.

We both decided at $30 dollars there wasn't much to lose, plus I could return it for store credit if it didn't work.  So we went to the checkout, I was congratulated by the customer in front of me on my awesome find (yay!), paid for it and went home to test it out.

I took it out of the box, found a toy Indian in the box, put said toy in my cupboard, went back to looking at my serger.  After cleaning up the serger I looked up the manual online, thankfully the Singer website has the manuals for the White brand on their site. From there I oiled it and threaded it then hoped for the best.

I tested it on some scrap jersey I had laying around and thankfully it worked.  I'm still working on it tweaking the settings on it but so far the stitches are looking great!

This seriously has to be one of the best finds I've ever had.  What is the best thrift store find you had?

How to make an oil lamp from a wine bottle

Toby and I were out shopping for gifts when we stopped in a local store that sells wine and wine accessories.  While looking around I noticed they had a metal cork that has a wick running through it. This converts a normal wine bottle into an oil lamp. I thought it was a really neat idea, I just wasn't comfortable spending the amount it was price at.

A few days later I was in a hobby store when I wandered into the candle and oil lamp section only to find a wick set. Remembering the wine bottle oil lamp I decided to pick one up and try it out.

Here is my end result I think it turned out pretty well.

How to make a wine bottle oil lamp

Supplies:

• Wick kit (mine is from a craft store)
• Paraffin Oil
• Wine bottle (the shorter the neck the better)
• Small clean rocks (I had some dollar store river rock baggies)
• Funnel

1. Make sure your bottle is clean and DRY. If the wick comes in contact with moisture it can cause a sputtering of the flame.
2. Fill the bottle section 2/3 full of the rocks.  This will add some weight to the bottle along with allow you to use less oil.
3. Using the funnel fill the wine bottle with the oil up into the neck about less than halfway up. Do not overfill.
4. Adjust the amount of exposed wick to about what you would have for a normal candle. Then guide the end into the bottle resting the ceramic part hold the wick on top of the bottle.
5. Let bottle sit for at least an hour to let the wick soak up the oil.
6. Enjoy!

A couple things I've learned from making a few different oil lamps are:

• The wider and shorter the wine bottle neck is the better the flame will be.
• The stones work great in the bottles.  I found people recommending filling the bottle halfway with water than the rest with oil.  Stick with the stones, they are cheap(dollar store purchase or just find some outside and clean them up) you don't have to worry about trimming the bottom of your wick since it will never touch water and no safety issues with the flame sputtering since the wick stays dry.
• Makes an affordable gift!

Have you ever made an oil lamp?  Let me know in the comments below.

How to make a pencil skirt from pants

I've had a few people asking about how to make a pencil skirt from pants after my post about pants into a skirt.  So I thought I'd try to write something out for everyone.  I'll warn you though, It probably won't be pretty. Also apologies for the crappy images I didn't take pictures of the process so this will have to do.

First find a pair of pants that fit well in the waist.  It's okay if they are a little tight in the pants legs, that will get taken care of when you're sewing it back together.  Just make sure you like how it fits for your waist.

Now take your trusty seam ripper and remove the inside seam so the inside is completely open and resembles a kind of weird looking skirt that probably doesn't cover much.

 Next flip your future skirt inside out and put it on.  Pinch the front flaps of the skirt closed and pin them in a straight line down.

Repeat for the back.

Carefully remove the skirt so as not to prick yourself with the pins, then take it to the sewing machine.

Sew along where its pinned taking out the pins as you go.  Once it's finished put the skirt / pants back on and determine the length you would like.  Mark it with chalk or a pin.  Remove the skirt

Draw out the rest of the line then cut off the excess leaving 1 inch extra for hemming.

At this point I did a top stitch on the front and the back seams to make them a bit sturdier and to give it a cleaner look.

After that trim off the excess fabric and hem the bottom of the skirt, I just folded mine and did a straight stitch, you could also do a blind hem stitch if you would prefer.


Ta-da! You're done!

**Optional: You can also add a slit up the back or the skirt if you would like a little more movement. When you are sewing the pinned sides makes sure to decide on the length at that point.

Dress Pattern Review-New Look 6375

I started and finished this pattern last weekend.  It's not technically on the projects list, but I'm counting this as one of the skirts I needed for work.

The project has easy to follow instructions, simple pattern pieces to cut out and the size chart is accurate. You picked  between the 5 different top styles then the skirt is the same for all of them.  I went with D, the cowl neckline with straps.

I used a fabric I found at the local thrift store, it's a polyester fabric with a little bit of stretch with a black plaid pattern. The fabric cost around $2 and the pattern cost about $3 (think this was on sale at Joann Fabrics when I picked it up) so I'm really happy about the cost :)

The pattern does call for a zipper to be  sewn into the back of it, which I'm still learning how to do and I'm really proud of how well it turned out.  The zipper is from my stash of zippers I picked up at my local thrift store prices 25 cents to 68 cents.  The dress style I went with also called for an eye & hook which I didn't have in my stash of sewing supplies (used the last one repairing bras, blah) but I was able to find them for 50% off at Hobby Lobby. Woo!

I will defiantly do this pattern again, in fact I have a really pretty brown fabric with pink polka dots just waiting to be made into this dress. I will most likely use pattern D again. When it's paired with a cardigan I can easily wear it to work.

I really have no complaints about the pattern, I love the dress I made and am looking forward to making or finding accessories for it. I'm thinking red for some reason and I do have some red fabric and lots of the plaid fabric left over.  Maybe I can make a red purse with plaid lining or a reversible belt.

Any ideas?  I'd love to hear them!

Cake Decorating Class

After watching way too many hours of Food Network I ended up becoming fascinated with cake decorating. I've tried decorating cakes in the past and honestly they sucked (tasty but ugly). I would normally just give up and cover them with candy so no one would noticed how badly frosted they were. This worked out well since they were for kids, but I really wanted to learn how to actually decorate a cake.

So jumping ahead a year, my friend Dawnee and I took a Wilton cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby when we found out they had the basic one available. The class was once a week for a couple hours, we learned how to frost the cake, make frosting, piping techniques and flower making.

I think my favorite part had to be learning to make the frosting. For the first class we had to buy some pre-made Wilton frosting and honestly it was awful. Thankfully the Wilton recipe is very good and can be customized to any flavor you would want.

One of the classes we learned about piping by decorating cupcakes. Here are the ones I made.

Not the prettiest things ever but they were tasty, it's an orange flavored cupcake and frosting with a chocolate filling.

I thought my final project came out pretty at least.

I stuck with the orange frosting(butter cream) but switched to a red velvet cake recipe I found online then added peanut butter chips to the center of the frosting flowers.

Dawnee's final project came out beautiful, she made a cherry blossom design on her cake.

It's red velvet cake with mint frosting and a raspberry filling, Yum!
I'm nowhere near being an expert but I think I can make a prettier cake then I had been making.

 Dawnee (Right) and I with our cakes

Has anyone else taken the Wilton cake class? Let me know what you thought of it or better yet, I'd love to see your cake designs.